Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Sample Photos: PanaLeica Nocticron 42.5mm f/1.2

I got a surprising call from Panasonic to test out their much lusted-over new uber lens, the 42.5mm f/1.2 beast, for a couple of days. In this quick post I will show a few of my favorite pictures taken with this lens. I won't be reviewing it in detail until later, but in short, the lens is extremely sharp, and I didn't come across any weird bokeh issues as mentioned by some sites. All photos shown here are shot wide open at f/1.2, look at those smooth backgrounds!

Seriously though, what if I told you that you can get the exact same quality as the $1,600 f/1.2 Nocticron for just $300? Would you believe me?

I was lying, all the pictures shown here are taken with the Olympus 45 f/1.8 wide-open, really. Hurry up and get yours now at it's discounted $300 price on Amazon, there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't.

The new PanaLeica will certainly be something special, especially with one complete f-stop wider aperture, and built in image stabilization that will be useful for video shooting on non-stabilized bodies. But for $1,600, it won't be very popular.

P.S. How many of you believed me? Even for one second?

UPDATE:

I got a comment from a friend regarding the price of the Nocticron. He said that for this price ($1,600) one can buy a FF camera with an 85 f/1.8 lens, and benefit from a shallower DoF (42.5mm @ f/1.2 is equivalent to 85mm @ f/2.4), better dynamic range, and better high ISO performance. And while I agree 100% with this, I see that this is only one side of the coin, and there are many more benefits to the 42.5 lens despite the expensive price:

There is no 85 f/1.2 stabilized lens for a FF system, so you would get a stabilized viewfinder, and can use slower shutter speeds. Will also be useful for video shooting.

The aperture is still f/1.2, which will let in a whole stop of extra light compared to f/1.8.

The bokeh as well looks different with f/1.2, I prefer the rugby ball shapes to the round ones (go check Canon's 85 f/1.2 pictures).

From the early tests, this lens seems to be extremely sharp at f/1.2, which can't be said about the budget f/1.8 FF lenses, my Canon 85 1.8 was poor wide-open.

Size and weight will be much less than full frame equivalent any day.

Finally, you get all these benefits with enough DoF to keep the important parts of your subject in focus, sometimes there is such a thing as too much shallow DoF.

That said though, I wish I get to try a FF camera with Canon's 85mm f/1.2.